Review: The Magician's Nephew

Despite the recent(ish) reordering of the books’ sequencing, there’s no doubt that The Magician’s Nephew was written as a prequel and intended to be read as such. Not just because it references events from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in such a way that it assumes the reader is already familiar with that particular text, but because it basis a lot of its plot on the appeal that only prequels can provide.

Some might say that prequels undercut the sense of suspense any story might otherwise have, simply because the reader already knows (at least in broad strokes) how it all works out. And sure, I never feared for Digory’s safety (who after all, appears as Professor Kirke in other books) in the same way I get anxious for Eustace and Jill in The Silver Chair.




But the charm of any prequel lies in the way its story matches up with the readers’ foreknowledge of how certain events are going to play out. It makes them feel as though they’ve been let in on a secret that the characters haven’t. I remember clearly the feeling of awe and delight that came over me when I was read The Magician’s Nephew back in Mr Harper’s class at primary school. He paused just before getting to the birth of the lamp-post and said: “now, if any of you have read the other Narnia books, then you may recognise what happens next...” I guess it’s safe to say that this was a formative experience in my literary life, as I remember it clearly nearly twenty years later.

As a prequel, The Magician’s Nephew aims to explain the origins of several fundamental elements from The Lion; namely the White Witch (generally just called the Queen or the Witch here), Professor Kirke, the lamp-post and the wardrobe. Naturally, Aslan does not and cannot have his origins explained, but when he finally appears over halfway through the book, the reader finds him singing Narnia itself into creation, giving us all a chance to explore the birth of that land and its first inhabitants.

It’s very much then a story of one world ending and another beginning, with a few London hijinks (straight out of an E. Nesbit book) connecting the two. And as a chronological introduction to the world of Narnia, it seems fitting that it should all begin with two children, a boy and a girl, deciding to become friends and exploring the empty attic space in a row of London houses. The Chronicles of Narnia are full of doors that don’t lead where they should (the wardrobe in The Lion, the garden door in The Silver Chair, the stable door in The Last Battle), and this is no exception, with Digory and Polly miscounting the rafters that were to have indicated they had reached the empty house at the end of the row and entering Great Uncle Andrew’s study instead.

I’ve said in the past that these books are riddled with “moments of intrigue” and The Magician’s Nephew is no exception – in fact, it probably has the most of them, starting with Uncle Andrew’s story about his godmother Mrs Lefay, a woman said to have fairy blood in her, who spent time in jail for some unspecified crime, and who somehow ended up with a box from Atlantis filled with dust from the Wood between the Worlds. There’s no point even trying to unpack any of this because Lewis gives us virtually nothing to go on (and I’ve no idea how Atlantis of all things got brought into this), but by his hand this woman’s mysterious and unspoken backstory becomes the source of all the magic that follows.

Andrew, having fashioned rings (somehow) out of the dust in his godmother’s box, tricks Polly into touching one, teaches Digory how to use the others, and awaits on the results.

The children end up in what might well be Lewis’s most striking literary creation: the Wood between the Worlds, a concept so engaging that it inspired a whole TV tropes page named after it. It may not be the first “in between” place, but it’s certainly the most famous, and the imaginative power of a billion or so worlds ready to be explored by simply leaping into pools of water cannot be matched.

Yet Lewis grounds the dizzying possibilities with a discussion on the mechanics of the yellow and green rings the children have been given – that the yellow ones bring you to the wood, the green ones allow for access through the pools – as well as the frightening possibility that they could have easily forgotten to mark the pool to their own world and so risk never finding it again.

This, by the way, is Polly’s idea, who follows Jill and Aravis in Lewis’s newfound trend of much-improved female characters. Perhaps not quite as interesting as her direct predecessors, Polly’s relationship with Digory is still undoubtedly one of equals, with Polly wielding a considerable amount of clout in their interactions. She insists on checking that the green rings can take them home again, and takes charge of yelling “change” when they get close to returning. She realizes that they have to mark their own pool before exploring others, engages in a lot of squabbling, debate and compromise with her companion, and is not the slightest bit tempted by the bell and the hammer.

In short, Polly is the least-idiotic of all Lewis’s child protagonists.

It’s at this point that Lewis’s gender politics get really interesting, especially in a book in which the Christian analogies are at their most pronounced (at least since Aslan’s death and resurrection). On reaching Charn and finding the Hall of Images where Empress Jadis sits in stasis, it is Digory and not Polly who rings the bell that awakens her, as suggested by the writing on the plinth:

Make your choice, adventurous stranger
Strike the bell, and bide the danger
Or wonder, 'till it drives you mad,
What would have followed if you had.

It was Eve’s curiosity that made her eat the apple, and Pandora’s that opened the box, but here it is a little boy’s desire for knowledge that eventually dooms Narnia to its one hundred year winter. It’s worth saying at this point that The Magician’s Nephew is full of Biblical allusions – from the hilltop garden whose gates face eastward, to the mention of Narnia being “seven hours old”, to Aslan’s declarative intonations (“Love. Think. Speak.”), to the most obvious of all: temptation over an apple, with Digory in the role of Eve and Jadis playing the serpent, urging him to eat it – or, if not that, then taking it home to his sick mother. Yet in this instance, Digory resists her words and the Witch’s evil influence is postponed, if not defeated.

(At this point I also have to point out that along with the Bible, it’s more than likely Lewis was borrowing liberally from J.R.R. Tolkien, whose own magnum opus was well under way, with details such as the world being sung into existence, magical rings, and silver/gold trees present both here and in The Silmarillion).

For along with being a prequel, The Magician’s Nephew has a didactic quality that’s more pronounced than it usually is (Lewis is often accused of preaching, but it’s not really until this book that it becomes overt). When the children reach Charn and the Hall of Images, we are given this description:

The people sat in their stone chairs on each side of the room and the floor was left free down the middle. You could walk down and look at the faces in turn.

“These were nice people, I think,” said Digory.

Polly nodded. All the faces they could see were certainly nice. Both the men and women looked kind and wise, and they seemed to come of a handsome race. But after the children had gone a few steps down the room they came to faces that looked a little different. These were very solemn faces. You felt you would have to mind your P’s and Q’s, if you ever met any living people who looked like that.

When they had gone a little further, they found themselves among faces they didn’t like: this was about the middle of the room. The faces here looked very strong and proud and happy, but they looked cruel. A little further on they looked crueller. Further on again, they were still cruel but they no longer looked happy. They were even despairing faces: as if the people they belonged to had done dreadful things and also suffered dreadful things.

The last figure of all was the most interesting – a woman even more richly dressed than the others, very tall, with a look of such fierceness and pride that it took your breath away...

This woman, as I said, was the last: but there were plenty of empty chairs beyond her, as if the room had been intended for a much larger collection of images.

It’s not something I ever realized as a child, but this is a plum example of the “show, don’t tell” rule, demonstrating firstly that Charn was once ruled by decent people until later generations became corrupted, and secondly that its history ended prematurely. We later hear Jadis’s incredible backstory that involves a civil war with her sister and her discovery of the Deplorable Word; a magical incantation that bears a resemblance to a nuclear weapon in its mass destructive abilities. Aslan himself makes the connection all-but-explicit by the end, stating:

"It is not certain that some wicked one of your race will not find out a secret as evil as the Deplorable Word and use it to destroy all living things. And soon, very soon, before you are an old man and an old woman, great nations in your world will be ruled by tyrants who care no more for joy and justice and mercy than the Empress Jadis. Let your world beware."

Earth and Charn, it would seem, are Not So Different.

A similar correlation is made between Digory, Andrew and the Witch. At different points of the book the latter two each declare: “ours is a high and lonely destiny” (something noted by Digory) whereas just before Digory makes his fateful grab for the bell, Polly tells him: “you looked exactly like your Uncle when you said that.”

A third example of vastly different outcomes originating from a common source is in the use of the silver apples growing in Aslan’s walled garden. Depending on whether they are taken on behalf of another, or stolen for oneself, there are vastly different consequences in eating or planting them. Again, Aslan states:

Things always work according to their nature. [The Witch] has won her heart’s desire; she has unwearying strength and endless days like a goddess. But length of days with an evil heart is only a length of misery and already she begins to know it... The fruit always works – it must work – but it does not work happily for any who pluck it at their own will. If any Narnian, unbidden, had stolen an apple and planted it here to protect Narnia, it would have protected Narnia. But it would have done so by making Narnia into another strong and cruel empire like Charn, not the kindly land I mean it to be. 

Understand then, that it would have healed [your mother] but not to your joy or hers. The day would have come when both you and her would have looked back and said it would have been better to die in that illness...that is what would have happened child, with a stolen apple. It is not what will happen now. What I give you now will bring joy. It will not, in your world, give endless life, but it will heal. Go. Pluck her an apple from the tree.

The message is loud and clear: that nothing starts out as evil, but anything can become evil given time and opportunity – whether an individual or a world. It might not have been possible for Digory to ever become like the Witch – who was more ancient and powerful than he could ever be – but he did have the potential to become like Uncle Andrew, who in turn was likened to Jadis. The greed and pride and violence of all three is fundamentally the same, but simply operating on a different scale.

As the maker of the world and the embodiment of quintessential goodness, such corruption cannot come from Aslan. It’s only through the free will he bestows on his creations that the fruits of his labour can become twisted and perverted – becoming (quite literally) a bad apple. Such is the price of autonomy, and though Narnia largely resists corruption, Aslan lets us know that Earth still has the potential to become like Charn, with its own version of the Deplorable Word. Or so Lewis tells us.

Miscellaneous Observations:

There is a passage involving Jadis that piqued my interest. When Aslan begins to sing Narnia into being, we’re told: “the Witch looked as if, in a way, she understood the music better than any of them. Her mouth was shut, her lips were pressed together, and her fists were clenched.” Given that Charn was once ruled by benevolent folk, and no doubt started off the same way as Earth and Narnia (that is, good) could it be that Jadis and Aslan once crossed paths in Charn? Perhaps not literally, and probably not while he was in his leonine form, but couldn’t there have been a different incarnation of him there that Jadis may have recognised and hated?

The story that Jadis tells about her sister is equally fascinating. I’ll admit that I went through a phase as a little girl when I was absolutely obsessed with the passage in which Jadis’s sister climbs the steps in victory before she’s wiped out by the Deplorable Word, and I desperately hope that this moment is depicted in the upcoming movie adaptation. Just imagine the civil war that was fought, the armies that were mustered on each side, the day the “no magic” agreement was broken...

Geez, can you imagine their childhood together? There’s such an incredibly dense and rich backstory here, yet it’s told in such fleeting terms (like many female characters, Jadis’s sister doesn’t even warrant a name). Like old Mrs Lefay, here is a crucially important female character whose actions in life shaped the course of events throughout The Chronicles of Narnia – and yet we know nothing about her. A part of me wonders if perhaps this unnamed sister was in truth a heroic freedom fighter who very nearly wrested Charn back from her diabolical sister....

Despite being a prequel, there are plenty of things that go unexplained. There is no mention, for example, of the Deep and Deeper Magic during Aslan’s creation of Narnia that is so important to the climactic scene of The Lion. Neither is there any mention of things like Cair Paravel, the Stone Table and the briefly-mentioned Fire Stones that are already ancient by the time the Pevensies turn up. And there’s no real explanation on anything from the other books – the painting of the Dawn Treader, the Lady of the Green Kirtle, or the Calormen Empire for example. And there’s never any understanding of what happened to the protective apple tree – it can only be assumed that it must have eventually failed in keeping the Witch at bay.

And of course, that tantalizing little tidbit that was mentioned back in The Lion as to the Witch’s lineage is completely missing here. I’m referring to Mr Beaver’s assertion that Jadis was half-giant (which is mentioned here) and half-jinn, descended from Adam’s first wife Lilith (which is decidedly not brought up). Why the omission? Perhaps Lewis felt explaining how Adam’s first wife and her progeny ended up in Charn was too complicated to explain. Perhaps he felt that he’d retconned Jadis from a witch originating on Earth to an alien creature from another universe altogether. Perhaps he had no idea how to reconcile his old idea with the new one. But the overt mention of “giantish blood” makes me believe that he hadn’t forgotten about it...

And finally, there’s Uncle Andrew. He’s a bit of an odd duck, isn’t he? I mean, he shares the title of the book with Digory and yet he doesn’t really have a lot to do once he’s given the children their world-jumping devices. He’s a treatise on the evils of greed and hubris, then he’s the centrepiece of a comedy sequence, then he’s accorded the final paragraph of the book in which Lewis is rather indulgent towards his failings. And that’s the last we ever hear of him – not that I was necessarily expecting him to turn up in Continuity Cavalcade of The Last Battle, but I get the sense that even Lewis himself wasn’t sure where he stood on Andrew’s eventual fate.